


Monochrome Doze

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Series: Flames and Pheremones [3]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bullying, Companion Piece, Gen, Genderfluid Character, LGBTQ Themes, do you know how much i fucking love writing nana, i dont know what else to tag sorry guys, like i really fucking love her and hibari, uhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 18:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11972685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: Snapshots of life before Reborn.





	Monochrome Doze

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ymzuwrS6M&list=PLuTlZdjYxMcWTI9CU_wqNDBH-Dg6R0_kO&index=3  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozOkVR1lXYA&list=PLuTlZdjYxMcWTI9CU_wqNDBH-Dg6R0_kO&index=8

Tsuna is six years old. His mother loves him, and they are secure in their home and have food, and the town is safe. It isn’t enough. Every day, he goes to school, struggles to understand, tries to ignore the other students, and then goes home. He doesn’t talk to friends, or play with others, or do much of anything, really. The only interaction he gets outside of home is the jeers of peers and pitying looks of teachers. Half the time, he can’t focus past the haze in his head, and it’s hard to grip the pencil and write how they want him to. Everything’s just so hard, now.

He always feels lonely. He doesn’t know how to tell his mother this when she asks how he is, so he doesn’t say anything. He just curls in close to her neck, breathing in the  _ home-warmth-family  _ scent that’s dimmer than memory now.

* * *

 

Children are cruel. It’s an immutable fact, and one Tsuna knows for certain. He watches the upperclassman, three years older than him and fifteen pounds heavier, laugh and eat his bento. Tsuna knows if he fights back, he’ll be pushed down, and the teacher will come over, and the boy will suddenly wail and say Tsuna wasn’t sharing and he just wanted to try some of it, it wasn’t  _ fair _ . And the teacher would ignore what they’d already seen and agree. And Tsuna would be punished.

Tsuna picks up his empty bento box, when it’s finally thrown on the ground, and packs it away.

That day, they learn about how there are two genders and three designations (the teacher sounds it out, drawing out the  _ tei _ like it’s its own word) and how, when they’re older, they’ll eventually slot into one, turning into an A or O or B. The class already knows some of it, and they erupt into whispers at the end of it, wondering what they’ll be. Tsuna doesn’t really care.

He looks out the window as the teacher talks about the roles each designation usually plays in society, and watches a boy scale a building.

* * *

 

Sasagawa-chan is a very nice girl, Tsuna decides at some point, watching her smile and talk with other kids. She smiles at him, and is pretty, and her clothes are very cute, and this is enough to cement that she is a Good Person in his eyes. He asks his mama for a pretty blue skirt like the one she had worn the other day, and Nana carefully considers the question, before saying she didn’t see why not.

Tsuna gets weird looks when he walks in wearing it, but no one says anything. He is still, for some reason, uneasy.

“I guess Tsuna’ll be an omega when he grows up!” One of the bullies crows. Oh. That’d been what he was waiting for. Tsuna brushes down his skirt quietly and sits in the back of the class. Nothing else is said, and no one hears him sniffle. The looks are still there. The teacher looks concerned.

The park is still very nice that day, and the sandbox empty when he climbs in. He’s old for it, to be doing this alone, but it’s calming, like an oasis in the chaos that is the town. His mind wanders to the lessons from the past few days, and he absently wonders why it matters so much to people, alpha and omega and girl and boy.

What was he going to be? Would it matter? Would he care? The sand slipped through his fingers as he sat there. By the time one of Uncle Masaru’s men find him, white suit gleaming in the sunset, he’s been sitting there for hours. He didn’t feel the cold creeping in at all.

When Nana asks what he was thinking, he can only blankly look at her.

* * *

 

Tsuna is eight years old. School is hopeless now, and he needs to study for hours to make sure he has a good enough grasp of anything. No one talks to him, except for Sasagawa-chan when he works up the nerve to compliment her on occasions. In return, she’s taken to asking him how his mother is. He thinks that her fathers know Nana, or know who she is. He hopes Sasagawa-chan isn’t being forced to talk to him. 

He wants a friend.

Skirts and dresses become a regular addition. Nana has no problem with it, and Tsuna is happy about how he can feel good about at least some part of himself. It doesn’t help the bullying, though. Suddenly, he’s weird, stupid, getting mixed up because he’s so girly. 

Tsuna never tells them it’s because he sort of is a girl, because that would only make it worse. He’s content right now to just enjoy what he can. But suddenly his teacher wants Nana to come in after class one day, radiating something sickly that makes him want to say no. It smells like what comes off the doctors whenever his mama takes him to the hospital.

He doesn’t understand what’s said during the meeting; he can only really understand that Nana is upset, and angry, and that somehow, it is possible for human skin to turn the shade of curdled milk. His teacher’s face goes that colour when Nana mentions someone named Ichiko. The Sawadas are allowed to leave, at that point.

When they get home, Nana pauses in the genkan, sighing into one hand and messing up her hair. Tsuna hugs her, trying to help. It makes her smile, and she leans down to look him in the eye.

“Tsu-kun, could you tell me something? Why do you like your skirts and dresses?”

“They’re pretty!” Her smile widens.

“They are very pretty, and prettier on you. But is there any other reason? Do you- do you want to wear them because girls wear them, or only because they’re pretty?”

“They’re just pretty,” He says, because he doesn’t really get what she means. He’s eight, and the abstract isn’t something eight year-olds are usually confronted with. “Why does it matter if a girl or a boy wears them? Are only girls allowed to?” He scrunches up his nose in thought. “That’s stupid. A lot of the boys in my class would be pretty in dresses.” Nana laughs, but Tsuna isn’t upset because it’s a good laugh, the one she does right before she squeezes him into a big hug. And she does, grabbing him up and lugging him to the kitchen, where she sets him in a chair.

“I guess I should have expected that from you. How about this, Tsu-kun: are you wearing your dresses as a pretty  _ boy  _ or a pretty  _ girl _ ?”

“I dunno. Tsuna is Tsuna,” He says, fidgeting at the table. “Do I have to be a boy or a girl? Why not... why not both? Or neither?” Nana considers  _ that _ , before shaking her head and patting his.

“No. You can be whatever you want, Tsuna-kun. As long as you know Kaa-chan loves you.”

* * *

 

The bullying gets worse. Suddenly, the fact he has low grades and trouble understanding what the teachers are talking about is very bad, and he’s not just the weird clumsy boy now, he’s the useless idiot who dresses like a girl.

He’s Dame-Tsuna.

The first time someone calls him that, he hides during lunch. It’s behind the building, where no one usually goes, and he has to snort every other minute to keep his nose from dripping. He doesn’t bother drying his cheeks.

There’s a small scuffle by the corner, and his head darts up, because he can’t deal with the bullies seeing him, not now, no no no-

But it’s just an older boy. He looks kind of familiar, black hair fluffed up and scrapes on his elbows and knees. He’s got weird rods in his hands, and he’s frowning at Tsuna like his world just ended.

“ _ Puppy _ .” The other boy whispers. Tsuna stares at him. He doesn’t have time to react when he’s suddenly scooped up, the other boy rubbing at his cheeks with a crumpled tissue. Then he’s been cuddled close, and. He’s not being hurt, so he doesn’t really protest.

Tsuna feels something chomp down on his hair, and really hopes it isn’t what he thinks it is.

* * *

 

Hibari Kyouya, which was the older boy’s name, was really weird. Like, Tsuna knew weird, he was used to weird. Hibari-senpai was  _ weird _ . He barely attended school from what the brunet could tell, but he still did all his work perfectly, and he followed older kids around constantly, and beat people up with his stick things. He wouldn’t leave Tsuna alone either, constantly showing up out of nowhere to pick him up and cuddle or groom him. The  _ grooming,  _ too, good lord.

When he first asked Nana what it meant when someone wouldn’t stop crowding you and treating you like a baby, she stared at him for a long time before asking if he was being touched without his permission.

He clarified that, no, this was another boy his age, not a strange man or woman. She relaxed slightly at that and suggested that his new friend was just a bit territorial.

Was Hibari-san his friend? They didn’t really talk, whenever they hung out. They didn't play games, or eat together, or anything like that either. It left him more hesitant around the boy, and eventually he just stopped going outside for lunch. Hibari probably didn’t know which class was his. Probably.

He thought it was a good idea. He didn’t predict that it would anger the bullies.

They crowded around him now, glaring down at where he was huddled. One had kicked him, and Tsuna dropped into a ball to protect his vitals. That was something Uncle Masaru had taught him- when faced with larger opponents and in the corner, protect what was important. Livers were pretty important.

“You think you’re pretty clever, huh, staying inside?” Sneers Fujita, the ringleader and Tsuna’s main tormentor. His foot shot out, catching Tsuna in his hip and making the tiny child cry out in pain. “Think you can hide from us, that you don’t deserve this, dragging ev’ryone down with your Dame-ness-” He pulled back to kick again, and Tsuna cringed, hiding his face in his arm as he braced for impact.

It never came. Instead, there was an odd crunch, and ear-splitting screams. Feet pounded against the dirt, running away, until there was only the noise of Tsuna’s heavy breathing. 

“Puppy?” A small hand tugged at his arm.

“‘M not a puppy.” 

“Puppy.” Hibari tugged the smaller child into his arms, trotting away without any difficulty. Tsuna refused to look up. Hibari’s steps were measured, and he didn’t pause. Eventually, he came to a stop, carefully sitting down and shifting Tsuna into his lap. The brunet peaked his head up a little, peering up at the boy. Hibari was looking back, eyes solemn. He could see leaves above their heads.

“...Why are you so nice to me?” He asked. “No one else is nice to me except mama.” 

“Herbivores are harmless to carnivores, but they can still hurt others.” Tsuna squinted.

“....You’re a carnivore?” Hibari nodded. “Don’t carnivores eat herby-vores? Am I a herby-vore?”

“You’re a puppy. Puppies aren’t either, they’re just meant to be protected.” Hibari declared with all the surety of a child. Tsuna glared.

“I’m not a puppy! If I’m a pup, then so are you, because you’re only a year older!” Hibari stared for a long moment.

“Bunny, then.”

“No!”

* * *

 

Tsuna stared at his worksheets. There was something deeply unsettling about these lessons. The diagrams of genitals seemed to almost mock him in a way, cartoonish as they were. Timelines of puberty, descriptions of hormones and changes, blankly presented.

The descriptions of heats and ruts, and of knots, those didn’t bother him. It was only these. He shoved the papers into his bag and resolved to shove it out of mind. He tried to at least, but it kept to his mind like glue, a grease on his skin that wouldn’t scrub off.

“Hibari-senpai? You already went through sex education, right?” The boy grunts from where situated next to Tsuna, sprawled on his back. “Did anything about it ever seem.. Off?”

“How?” Tsuna fidgets, grimacing. There wasn’t a good way to phrase this without seeming stupid. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of Hibari-san. He was the only one who didn’t seem to treat him like it, these days. Hibari opens an eye a minute later, annoyed stare boring into the side of Tsuna’s head. “ _ How? _ ”

“It just seems off!” Tsuna burst out. “All these- changes they talk about, and, and the, the parts, it’s- unnerving? Weird? It doesn’t feel- I don’t  _ want  _ that!” Tsuna tries to imagine himself hairy, with a deep voice and broad shoulders. It’s deeply upsetting, and he shudders, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Do you want to stay a pup?”

“ _ No _ -! That’s not- it, that’s not it.” Hibari hums.

“Maybe they’re not meant for you.” Tsuna stares. Hibari is wholly unaffected.

“Hibari-san, I-I-I can’t just skip out on puberty. That’s how people die, because, because their body isn’t working right and it breaks.” The older boy shakes his head and finally sits up, huffing.

“There are other types of puberty, Bunny.” Tsuna opens his mouth to say something but. Stops. Considers that. There’s an old memory from when he was eight, two years ago, and some teacher had pulled Nana in for a parent-teacher conference. She had asked him weird questions afterwards, and told him he could be whatever he wanted.

Maybe she could help better than his emotionally blunt friend. He hugged Hibari anyways and let the boy straighten out his clothes.

Nana, when he asks her later that night, pauses carefully and sets down her fork.

“I need you to explain this clearly, Tsu-kun, no beating around the bush just because I’m your mother.”

So he does, in as clear a way he can. The lessons and changes and how just hearing about what was going to happen terrified him. She listens to it all, and goes to the supply closet, coming back with a piece of printer paper and a pencil. She sets it in front of him, and tells him to draw what he  _ does  _ want to look like when he’s older.

It’s pretty much just a bigger version of how he is now. Maybe a little narrower in the waist, and a little bigger in the chest, but that’s about it. It’s also crappily drawn, but he’s not an artist and doesn’t want to be. Nana looks at it carefully, and smiles a touch sadly before setting it back down.

“Did you know they couldn’t tell what you are, before you were born? I spent my whole pregnancy going through names for boys and girls because I didn’t know. I didn’t care either way, because I knew I was going to love you no matter what.” He didn’t, actually. It’s a weird tidbit, and he doesn’t know why she’s talking about it. Her smile gets a bit sadder. ”There are people Tsu-kun, who, when they’re born, they aren’t born right. Not right for them. They’ll be born a girl when they’re supposed to be a boy, or a boy when they’re supposed to be a girl, or either when they’re supposed to be neither.”

“I...” He looks down at his hands. “Is that- what I am?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. You always did tell me when you were younger you weren’t a boy or a girl, just Tsuna. But,” and here she lays a hand over his, warm, “I can’t say for sure. I’m not you, Tsu-kun, and I’m also not a doctor. There is one in Namimori, who is, and who specializes in helping people who are dealing with this, or who thinks they might be. Going to them might help you.”

“How... how do you know all about this, Mama?” He asks. She hesitates for a moment before pulling back and going into the living room. There’s some rummaging, and she eventually pulls out an old album. She hauls it back and flips it open. There’s an old, old picture of her and a girl with copper hair, grinning at the camera as fireworks go off above them. They look barely older than Tsuna.

“That’s one of my old school friends. We took that picture halfway before junior high, and right before  _ he  _ came out to the community.” She smiles, reminiscing. “He was completely insane about it, went off to Tokyo and came back looking like a punk. His family was just relieved when he dialled it down to a normal teen.” She flips to further in the book, to another picture. This time, it’s the living room, two other people with them, an ash-haired man and toddler. They’re both crowded around Nana as she cradles a small, blue bundle. Nana’s friend is only recognisable by his copper hair, and he’s sporting another baby in his arms. “That was the week you were born.”

Tsuna looks between the two at the differences. There’s a settled feeling to the man in the second, like something’s been set to rights. He looks very happy, but Tsuna can’t say if it’s because of the babies or something else.

He asks Nana to make the appointment, regardless.

* * *

 

They’re grateful four months later, when life is just a bit easier and breathing is just a tad smoother. It is all too easy to change school records, and Tsuna should worry that Hibari already has that power. They don’t.

* * *

 

They’re eleven, and they have one friend to their name. They don’t know if they can count Kyoko-chan and Kurokawa-san, for all the two are nice and engaging. They’re still just Dame-Tsuna. They do not want to presume and be disappointed.

The girls are still nice company.

School is still horrible, made worse by teachers who have given up and peers that are worse and worse every day. Tsuna has permanent scarring, now, from where the branches had caught them and gouged a month ago. The rocks had done worse.

The doctors said they would have had less, if someone had called emergency services sooner. Tsuna tries to not think about that, or the fact it took ten minutes for anyone to think of doing that. It’s hard enough trying to get through the physical therapy scheduled every other day.

And then Iemitsu shows up.

It’s like being slingshot into a fire. Nana is tense the whole visit, and she’s near-snapping at other points, ready to ban the man from the pack territory. Tsuna does not correct him when he assumes that their territory is only the house. He’d know they claimed most of Namimori if he actually stuck around for once.

The misgendering, that’s a thorn in their side. They’d grown used to the begrudging respect or avoidance, people using gender-neutral terms and always calling them Tsuna or Sawada. They’d gotten used to people respecting them, letting others know if there was any adjustments to be made, if they were uncomfortable with being addressed. Suddenly, it was Tuna-Fish, manly son, adorable baby boy, he, he,  _ him _ , it never ended. They may be comfortable with it, at points, but the assumption rankles, bites at them, because this  _ idiot  _ isn’t here, he’s never here, he’s built on Western ideals and Tsuna can’t even  _ trust  _ him with their freaking self, how bad is that?

They know Nana’s sent pictures of them in their feminine clothes, and it just makes the masculinity sting more. 

Nana also called him about Tsuna’s “accident”. He doesn’t even mention it. Because he thinks Tsuna is suddenly fine because they’re awake or because he forgot, they don’t want to know.

He finally leaves after a month, leaving sake bottles and acidic resentment. Nana spends the next two days sitting quiet at the dinner table, sifting through papers and her laptop and thinking intently about something. When she comes out of it, she pulls Tsuna into a hug and apologises for staying with Iemitsu. They hug her back and tell her it’s not something to apologise for.

Tsuna pretends not to see the divorce papers she has sent out. She knows best. They aren’t about to complain.

* * *

Three years later, worn down and only hanging on through the day thanks to their mother and Hibari, they divert from their normal path, and slow to watch a strange toddler on the sidewalk.


End file.
